Washington DC, Part 3

Image above by Wolf Kahn at an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. We were really surprised at the quality of the collection shown - another one of those times when we didn't plan to see the exhibit (it was across the building from a Monuments Men exhibit) but thought we'd just rush through but wound up looking for over an hour.

How can you not want to have art like this in your home? These two in the National Gallery of Art were Susan's favorites this time, Degas' Before the Ballet above and Rousseau's Boy on the Rocks below.  She winds up with different favorites every visit.

Here's one of my favorites:

And here's something at our Metro station that had me Fully Flummoxed:

What the ....? An angel with black wings? Huh? Contrary to New York City where we talk to everyone, Washington DC is very uptight and unfriendly so we just behave ourselves.

Well, not exactly everyone. We happened to be there when the Cherry Blossom Festival was going on so we stopped to watch their parade and wound up talking to these people. You might not recognize him but I've now put his books on my Amazon wishlist -- Andy Straka.  An interesting thing about him, aside from the fact that he is famous and that we had fun talking to him and his charming young accomplice, is that he is a licensed falconer. 

The parade was kind of a bust, slow moving because it kept stopping so people in the parade could sing or perform for the fat cats who had paid to have grandstand seats. The ordinary people like us just waited and waited on the sidewalk for the parade to move on. Definitely not like the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Not to mention the fact that we had no idea what this float was supposed to be.

 

The weather was great, the art was great, but it was a very long day and I got really tired and it's really easy to fall asleep on the Metro... or in the station.